Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, AKP is preparing a new bill which will open the door to sentence women who undergo medically unnecessary abortions after 10 weeks of pregnancy to one to three years.

Ankara / NationalTurk – The public outrage over the abortion debate delayed the proposal, but Turkey’s Health Minister Recep Akdağ already made a presentation to the Parliament about the planned abortion bill.

The abortion proposal gives doctors and healthcare personnel the right to refuse to perform abortions. Doctors will also be obliged to provide lectures and services to convince the parents not to abort.

The medical excuses for abortions will also be changed. While no alteration to the time limitation for abotions was included, the punishment for violation is set to increase.

Abortion in Turkey : Punishable crime from now on

The abortion draft bill is going to replace family planning regulations with reproductive health services and to increase the budget provided for painless birthing methods. The discussion on caesarean births branched off in a completely different direction in Turkey, and now Turkey has become the first country to make elective caesarean sections punishable by law.

Issues such as parental leave and breast-feeding assistance will also expand.

Another change proposed will replace the consent of a parent or guardian with a judicial ruling as a requirement to abort fetuses resulting from incest. The abuser will be punished to six to 15 years in prison.

It was the comparison by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of abortion with murder in May that cretaed outrage and started heated debates across Turkey about women’s bodies and reproduction. In the same speech in which Tayyip described termination as a crime, he also announced he was against C-section births. Turkish women’s groups mobilised swiftly, organising numerous rallies to protest against a possible abortion ban, while commentators and academics have come forward to voice concern. After weeks of tension and ambiguity, the government seems to have taken the reactions not seriously and the subject of abortion has been brought far as into Turkish parliament by the servants of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in form of a abortion draft bill.